Here is the full press release from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:

Science fiction author Anne McCaffrey, best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series, has been named to the select group of authors designated as SFWA Grand Masters. She is only the twenty-second writer so honored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America since 1974. The selection was made by SFWA President Catherine Asaro, in conjunction with the Board of Directors and the past presidents of SFWA.

Presentation of the award will be made during the Nebula Awards'® Weekend, April 28-May 1, 2005, at the Allegro Hotel in the heart of Chicago's Loop Theater District. The public is welcome. Registration details are available at http://www.sfwa.org/awards/2005/ Ms. McCaffrey's career spans nearly forty years and broke new ground in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, for adults and young people alike. It began with the publication of the novella "Weyr Search," (1967), and includes over seventy novels and several short story collections. In 1968 and 1969, "Weyr Search," the initial story in the Dragonriders of Pern series, won a Nebula Award® and a Hugo Award for Best Novella, marking the first time a woman received a Hugo for fiction. She has received the Writers of the Future Life Time Achievement Award, the HOMer award, and the Science Fiction Book Club's Book of the Year. Her 1978 novel The White Dragon was the first science fiction novel to make the New York Times hardcover bestseller list.

Ms. McCaffrey has done much to bring new readers into the genre. She has also nurtured the careers of many writers. Her other series include the "Freedom" series, the "Doona" series (with Jody Lynn Nye), the "Dinosaur Planet" series (with Jody Lynn Nye and Elizabeth Moon), the "Crystal Singer" series, the "Brain & Brawn Ship" series (with Margaret Ball, Mercedes Lackey, S.M. Stirling, and Jody Lynn Nye), the "Petaybee" series (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough), the "Talent" series, the "Tower & Hive" series, the "Acorna" series (with Margaret Ball, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and various other authors), and, most recently, the "Coelura" series.

McCaffrey's contributions to the field include not only her groundbreaking literature, but her service to SFWA, in particular her stint as an officer. She served as Secretary/Treasurer under two past presidents, Jim Gunn and Gordon Dickson.

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 1, 1926, Ms. McCaffrey graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College with a degree in Slavonic language and literature. Though she wrote her first novel in college, after graduating she turned to theater, studying voice for nine years and eventually directing the American premiere of Carl Orff's Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus.

In 1970, McCaffrey and her three children moved to Ireland, where she lives in a house of her own design, called Dragonhold-Underhill. She also runs a private livery stable and has watched her horses enjoy much success in the show ring.

Ms. McCaffrey's current efforts focus on collaborations with several authors on various series. She passed the Dragonriders of Pern torch to her son Todd McCaffrey, with whom she coauthored Dragon's Kin. He just released his first Pern solo effort, Dragonsblood and also penned his mother's biography, Dragonholder: The Life and Dreams (So Far) of Anne McCaffrey.